No Plastic update: ghost nets

Longtime readers of Scandimood might remember my series ”No plastic”, ”No food waste” and ”No textile shopping”. And how I made an effort to reduce my private and professional consumtion of plastic, never throw away food and develop a strategy on how to buy less clothes and textile for the household. Some of you’ve now asked me for un update. You can read more under ”No Plastic” to the right of this page.

In Stockholm it is possible to recycle almost all kind of plastic. Unfortunately this make no incentive for people to consume less. On the contrary! Plastic is everywhere, it is difficult to avoid, and the main part of used plastic products end up as waste in the nature. A lot end up in the sea: it is app. that in 2050 there’ll be more plastic than fish in the seas.

An urgent problem with plastic is abandoned, lost and discarded fishing nets, lines and traps that threats sea life. A staggering 640,000 tonnes of (plastic) gear is left in our oceans each year. This gear traps, injures, mutilates and kills hundreds of thousands of whales, seals, turtles and birds annually. In July World Animal Protection called on all FN countries to investigate the possibility of using RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) and other ways to ID all commercial fishing gear. Follow their campagin Sea Change for more info.

Turtle in the Saragasso Sea trapped in plastic waste.

Kaskelot wale (aka Sperm whale) trapped in a ghost net. This giant have lived on earth for more than 25 million years! Photo copyright Alberto Romeo/Marine Photobank.

Seal trapped in a ghost net in the waters of UK (2018). Photo copyright World Animal Protection.